Pet Armor Coupons

Here’s another photo of little Halloween, who we met yesterday. She’s with her co-owner Richard (well half of him!) sitting on steps in the medieval village of Gorbio. Halloween lives in Villefranche-sur-Mer.RIVIERA DOGS

I don’t usually follow extreme sports much — or at all really — but it’s hard to resist the charm of Arthur, the stray dog who’s become an international sensation. Sweden’s Team Peak Performance was adopted by Arthur while they were competing in the Adventure Racing World Championship, a 430-mile trek through the Ecuadorian rain forest by bicycle, foot, and kayak.

Share this image

Photo by Krister Goransson/Peak Performance

It all started with a meatball. Four days into the race, the team sat down to eat. Team captain Mikael Lindnord gave a canned meatball to a stray dog who was hanging around their encampment. From that point on, Team Peak Performance went from four members to five, even if the humans took a while to realize it.

"I didn’t understand that Arthur was following us until we were alone and he was still there," Lindnord said on the team's website. "At one stage, we had to take a break and the dog was totally wrecked. We opened two cans of food and let him eat, because he could find no food at all in the jungle."

Arthur was determined to follow to the finish line, even when the team tried to get rid of him out of concern for his safety. When they reached the kayaking stage, organizers warned the team that the water would be unsafe for the dog, so they left him on shore. Arthur wasn't having any of that and just swam after the team.

"It was too heartbreaking, and we felt we couldn’t leave him," Lindnord said, "So we picked him up. We could hear the people cheer on the shore as we set off. But he was kind of in the way during the whole paddle, and we had to find different paddling techniques to not kick him off board. A few times he jumped in to the water and took a swim, and then he crawled back up again and was freezing so he got to wear our jackets. One time, we got quite close to land and he jumped off and swam to the shore, and we thought that was the last we were gonna see from him. But he ran on the road for a bit, and then he swam back to us."

Share this image

Photo by Krister Goransson/Peak Performance

Team Peak Performance crossed the finish line two days after meeting Arthur. They didn't win -- they came in 12th in the 10-day race -- but you can't find any press about the team that came in first. The story of Arthur and his loyalty for the sake of a meatball captured the minds and hearts of the world, especially when Lindnord decided to take Arthur home to Sweden.

Crawling over mudslides and through dense jungle is one thing, but making your way through the bureaucracy to transport a dog from one country to another is truly fearsome. Doing it took an even bigger team; Lindnord and his colleagues used Twitter and Paypal to raise the funds needed to get Arthur to his new forever home.

Share this image

Even with the contributions from supporters, getting Arthur to his new home was no sure thing. Every time they made it past a bureaucratic obstacle, Lindnord posted an update on the team's Facebook page, letting everyone know that they were that much closer to their goal. Among other things, they got treatment for a months-old wound on Arthur's back.

Share this image

The team at the finish line. For Arthur, this was just the beginning of a much longer journey. (Photo by Krister Goransson/Peak Performance)

In the end, all that bureaucratic wrangling and crowdfunding worked, and Arthur is now in Sweden. Currently, he's in a 120-day quarantine, but when he's made it through that final obstacle, he'll be joining Lindnord and his family at their home in Örnsköldsvik.

Share this image

Arthur meets his public in Sweden.

There's a lot to feel good about in the story of Arthur and Team Peak Performance, but perhaps the best thing is this: The story does not end with them. Thanks to their experience in Ecuador, the team has established the Arthur Foundation to advocate for the rights of stray dogs. If you want to donate and help more stray dogs have happy endings, go to the website and hit one of the buttons at the bottom of the page.

Why limit yourself to just being a human’s best friend…this dog is a sea turtle’s best friend, too!

Cairn Terrier, Ridley Ranger, is part of the team at Padre Island National Seashore working to save the Kemp’s Ridley, the most endangered sea turtle in the world.

According to Vetstreet.com, these rare sea turtles build their nests on the 80 miles of beaches of Padre Island. The park staff collects the eggs and incubates them to ensure some of the babies will survive. Then, once the little turtles have hatched, they are released into the water.

Natura has issued a voluntary recall of 5 lots of dry cat food and dry ferret food due to vitamin insufficiency. The official FDA report and list of specific products is below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE– November 24, 2014 – Fremont, Nebraska – Natura Pet Products has initiated a limited, voluntary recall of certain dry cat and dry ferret food lots produced in its Fremont, Nebraska facility. Due to a formulation error, these products contain insufficient levels of vitamins and excess minerals.

Pets can become ill if they lack vitamins for prolonged periods. Early signs of vitamin deficiency may include decreased appetite, lethargy, vomiting and weight loss. If treated promptly, vitamin deficiency can be successfully reversed. The presence of excess minerals in these products poses no health concern.

There have been no reports of animal health concerns to date, but these lots do not meet our quality standards and should not be consumed by pets. No other EVO® products or lots are affected by this issue.

The affected product and lot codes are:

PRODUCT

SIZE

UPC

EXP DATE

LOT CODE

EVO® Grain Free Turkey & Chicken Formula dry cat & kitten food

15.4 LB

5148 541400

02/19/2016

4300A700D2

EVO® Grain Free Turkey & Chicken Formula dry cat & kitten food

2.2 LB

5148 541402

02/20/2016

4301A700A4

EVO® Grain Free Turkey & Chicken Formula dry cat & kitten food

2.2 LB

5148 541402

02/20/2016

4301A700B4

EVO® Grain Free Turkey & Chicken Formula dry cat & kitten food

2.2 LB

5148 541402

02/20/2016

4301A700C4

EVO® Grain Free Ferret Food

6.6 LB

5148 542101

02/19/2016

4300A700D3

The problem was discovered during the investigation of an ingredient inventory discrepancy. Only these 5 lots are affected. These lots were distributed through independent retailers in CA, GA, MI, MN, NV, PA, TX, VT and Canada, as well as online. No other Natura products are affected.

Retailers have been contacted and are instructed to immediately withdraw these lots from store shelves. Consumers who purchased the product should discontinue feeding the product immediately and discard as normal household waste. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this incident. We are taking immediate corrective action as a result of our investigation.

For more information, consumers can reach Natura Consumer Relations at 1-855-206-8297, Monday through Friday 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM EST or visitwww.evopet.com.

4 ways to keep your pets safe this summer
Video: Veterinarian Karen “Doc” Halligan from PetArmor shows Kathie Lee and Hoda how they can keep Bambino and Blake safe this summer from pesky parasites like fleas and ticks, as well as heatstroke and sunburn caused by too much time outdoors.Read more on Today.com

Philadelphia Police Rock Ronald McDonald Socks, Show Their Silly Side For …
These police officers spiced up their uniforms with a head-turning fashion statement — for a good cause. Wednesday marked the 40th anniversary of the Ronald McDonald House — a charity that provides temporary housing to families of sick children …Read more on Huffington Post

I grew up in New England, a place where tradition runs supreme. Holidays were a big deal, and we spent most of the major ones shuttling from this aunt to that grandmother and back again, enjoying the camaraderie only a large and extended family can afford. Those were the halcyon years, when my mother could still get away with dressing me as a doily.

When I was eight years old, we moved across the country to Southern California, and those days came to an abrupt end. We still celebrated every major holiday with all the pomp and circumstance my mother could bring to the table, but in the end it was always just us, and while it was still lovely, it was more….quiet, somehow. We called the family religiously, listening to the hubbub in the background and the people shouting in tipsy voices, “Tell em we said hi! What’s it, 70 degrees out thah? We’re jealous!” And so was I.

We always toyed with the idea of going back to spend the holidays with the family, just once, but the lure of nostalgia was overcome by my father’s distaste for holiday travel, so we remained home, year after year, in the quiet serenity of a sunny and warm Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In 2003, I was just celebrating my first anniversary, settling into a new job, when my mother told me her father, my beloved Pepe, was in trouble. He had been in trouble his whole life, truth be told, but it was a different kind of trouble this time.

In all the old pictures from my childhood, you could see Pepe smiling with the ineffable twinkle of a person who liked to tell stories, usually embellished. Always embellished.

The other thing you could always find, when you looked hard enough, was the small rectangular outline of a box of cigarettes.

We tried for years to get him to quit, bought cartons and emptied them out only to replace the contents with candy, but to no avail. He did quit eventually, when he was finally diagnosed with lung cancer about 20 years after it should have happened, but of course by then it was too late.

We visited him at the start of his radiation therapy, and my mother, who had long missed the embrace of her family more than the rest of us put together, spent a lot of time with him helping him get set up.

She’s a nurse. Of course she would be his caretaker. And when he rallied, he sent her back home to California.

Several months later, she was once again beckoned to New England. Pepe was doing poorly, and now he was in the care of hospice. Did she want to come, they asked. And she did.

She warned us that this time it was different, that the end was actually coming. If we wanted to say goodbye, she told us, we should be ready.

The week before Thanksgiving, Mom called both my sister and I and told us that Pepe had only days left, and should we wish to say our goodbyes, we should get on a plane. So we did.

The story of his passing is for a different time, but suffice it to say he did it his way, like he always did, and as strange as it is to say, we spent a good deal of those last hours laughing even through our tears.

He died on November 23, 2003. He was to be buried the following week, and Thanksgiving was only 4 days away. We piled into my aunt’s home, collapsed in the basements and crammed into the living room, while my aunt tried to manage both the grief of her father’s death and the sudden influx of new guests. The preparation was a welcome distraction. She shopped for turkey while my mother took my grandmother coffin shopping. “Mom picked our her own while we were there,” she said with some chagrin. “She always was a bit of a control freak.”

I don’t remember what we ate, balanced on paper plates on our laps. I don’t remember the pie or the turkey though I know we had them all. I remember laughing my butt off at regular intervals, my father looking in horror at the assembled group and asking, “Why are you all smiling and laughing? Your grandfather just died.”

And my mother smiled back and said, “Because he would have been so happy to see us all together again. This is what he would have wanted.”

Even if it took him dying to do it. Stubborn man.

Life gives us beauty when we least expect it, and what I am most thankful for is the ability to recognize those moments when they arrive. A blessed Thanksgiving to you all, my friends, and may you find your beauty in strange places as well.